Chapter 41. Florian
I stood on the rolling ladder in the library section of the living room, feeling like a character in a movie.
The ladder glided smoothly along the brass rail with just a shift of my weight.
I adjusted a heavy, leather-bound volume of obscure maritime history, nudging it perfectly in line with its neighbors.
I could swear he was a hoarder, at least a book hoarder.
"You know," I said, looking down at Knox, who sat in the wingback chair with a tablet resting on his crossed knee. "This system makes no sense. Who organizes by cover color? It's chaotic evil."
Knox didn't look up, but the corner of his mouth quirked upward. He looked relaxed, his posture less rigid than the CEO armor he wore during the week. "It's aesthetic, Florian. And it keeps you occupied. I consider it a win-win."
"I'm reorganizing it," I threatened lightly, pulling out three blue books. "I'm going to ruin your aesthetic."
"Do your worst, menace, you are the one reorganizing it all later anyway," he said, finally glancing up. His dark eyes were warm, filled with that heavy, possessive affection that usually made my knees weak. "Just don't fall. I can't use a broken brat."
I stuck my tongue out at him, clutching the books to my chest.
Then the intercom on the side table buzzed.
It was a harsh, ugly sound. Knox frowned. He never got calls on the house line unless it was urgent. He set his tablet down and pressed the button.
"Yes?"
"Sir," the voice of his head of security, Kyle, crackled through the speaker. "We have a situation at the perimeter. Code Four. I need your authorization on the intake."
Knox’s demeanor shifted faster than a blink. The relaxed lover vanished. His spine straightened, his face closing off into a mask of stone.
"I'll take it in the study," Knox said, his voice dropping an octave, becoming cold. He stood up, buttoning his cardigan. "Florian, stay here."
"What's going on?" I asked, stepping down from the ladder. The sudden change in the atmosphere made my stomach turn over. "Code Four? Is that bad?"
"It's nothing for you to worry about," he said, forcing a smile, but already walking away from me. "I'll be back in ten minutes."
He didn't look at me. He walked straight to the heavy oak double doors of his study, entered, and closed them.
I stood there holding the blue books, my heart doing a strange, uneven rhythm against my ribs.
I tried to go back to shelving. I placed The Blue of Distance on the shelf, but my hands were shaking. I couldn't focus. I was scared, even though it was probably nothing. Yeah. Probably nothing.
But I couldn't quite breathe right.
I walked toward the study. I didn't mean to sneak. I just wanted to be near him, to prove that whatever was happening, we could handle it.
I raised my hand to knock, but his voice came through the wood, muffled but distinct. He must have been pacing near the door.
"...how did he get past the outer gate?"
Pause.
"I don't care if he was intoxicated. That is an unacceptable lapse, Kyle."
My hand hovered over the wood. My blood ran cold. Intoxicated.
I pressed my ear against the wood, shame and terror warring in my gut.
"Where is he now?" Knox asked. "Good. Keep him zip-tied. Do not call the police yet. No. I want him detained in the garage until I come down."
My knees gave out.
Finn.
It had to be Finn. I mean, I couldn't know it, but I had a gut feeling. A horrible, gut-wrenching feeling.
The door handle turned.
I couldn't move. I stood there, frozen, like a deer caught in the headlights of a semi-truck.
Knox stepped out. He looked furious, but when he saw me, the anger faltered.
"Baby," he said, reaching for me.
I flinched. I stepped back, hitting the wall. "He came here, didn’t he?"
Knox froze; his hand suspended in the air. He didn't insult my intelligence by asking what I meant. "You were listening."
“I'm sorry, I just…” I started, but suddenly I felt like I couldn't breathe anymore.
"I’m handling it," Knox said, trying to smother my panic. "I didn't want you to be upset."
"He broke in," I said, the words tasting like bile. "He knows where I live. He knows where you live. He's going to ruin everything. He always ruins everything."
"He did not get in," Knox corrected, his voice hard. "He attempted to breach the perimeter. My team stopped him. He never touched the door handle of this house, Florian. He can't."
The terror was a physical weight, crushing my lungs. I slid down the wall, curling into myself.
I thought I was safe.
"I can't do this anymore," I sobbed, burying my face in my knees. "I can't be the reason your life gets messed up. I have to leave. I have to go."
"No."
Knox was on the floor with me in an instant. Strong hands gripped my shoulders, pulling me out of my ball. He hauled me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me like iron bands.
"You are going nowhere," he growled into my hair. "Listen to me. You are not leaving."
"He's going to hurt you," I cried, clutching his cardigan, bunching the expensive fabric in my fists. Snot and tears smeared against his chest, just like the first time we met. "He's poison, Daddy. He's poison."
"I am immune to his poison," Knox said, rocking me slightly. "I am not some helpless civilian, Florian. I have resources your father cannot even comprehend. He is not a threat to me. He is a nuisance. And I exterminate nuisances."
I froze against him. I pulled back slightly, looking up at his face.
Knox wasn't looking at me with the soft eyes from the library. He was looking over my head, staring at nothing, his jaw set hard. His eyes were cold, calculating, devoid of mercy.
"What... what are you going to do?"
He looked down at me then. The coldness didn't leave his eyes, but his mouth curved into a small, terrifying smile. It wasn't a happy smile. It was the smile of a wolf that had just cornered a rabbit.
"I'm going to handle it," he said softly, wiping a tear from my cheek with his thumb. "Permanently."
The air left the hallway. "You're... you're not going…?"
The question hung there, heavy.
Knox’s smile widened just a fraction. "I won't kill him, if that's what you're asking," he said, his tone conversational, as if we were discussing dinner plans. "I am a civilized man, mostly."
He leaned in, kissing my forehead, but I was trembling so hard my teeth chattered.
"He tried to violate my home," Knox whispered against my skin. "He tried to get to you. He has forfeited his right to free will. I’ll handle it, sweetheart."
I looked at his hands, the hands that held me so gently, that reorganized books, that poured wine.
Now they looked like weapons. I should have been terrified of him.
I was terrified of him. But also not really.
All I wanted was for him to hold me forever.
As he pulled me back against his chest, tucking my head under his chin so I couldn't see the world, a dark, shameful part of me uncurled in the pit of my stomach.
For the first time in my life, the monster at the door was smaller than the monster holding me. And God help me, I felt safe.
Knox didn't let me walk. He scooped me up, one arm under my knees, the other supporting my back, and carried me into the living room as if I weighed nothing more than the books I’d been organizing.
He deposited me on the velvet sofa, arranging me like a broken doll he intended to fix, tucking a throw blanket around my legs before sitting on the coffee table directly in front of me.
He kept his hands on my knees, squeezing rhythmically, grounding me.
"Arizona," he said.
I blinked, my eyelashes still heavy and wet. I wiped my nose with the sleeve of my shirt, a habit he hated but didn't correct right now. "What?"
"There is a facility in Arizona," Knox said, his voice steady, devoid of the terrifying edge it held in the hallway. He was back to being the strategist. "It is not a prison, though the security is... comparable. It is a high-end rehabilitation center for difficult cases."
I sniffled, confusion warring with the adrenaline still coursing through my veins. "Rehab?"
"Your father is sick, Florian. We both know this.
His addiction drives his desperation, and his desperation drives him to my gate.
" Knox reached out, taking one of my hands.
His thumb rubbed over my knuckles. "I have arranged for a transport team.
They are already securing him. He will be on a private flight within the hour.
When he lands, he will be admitted there for a minimum stay of twelve months. "
"A year?" My voice squeaked. "He... he won't go. He hates doctors. He hates rules."
"He doesn't have a choice," Knox said simply. "The alternative is I press charges for trespassing, attempted burglary, and harassment. With his record, he goes to state prison for five years. My team laid out the options for him. He chose Arizona."
I stared at him. It was so clean. So clinical. Knox had taken the chaotic, screaming nightmare of my childhood and turned it into a logistics problem.
"But..." The old guilt, the one implanted in me since I was a baby, flared up. "I can't just ship him away. He's my dad. He doesn't know anyone in Arizona. He'll be alone." I hunched my shoulders, looking down at our joined hands. "It feels wrong."
"Look at me."
I didn't want to, but his tone compelled me. I lifted my chin.
"You are not throwing him away," Knox said, his dark eyes fierce.
"You are saving his life. If he stays here, on the street, drinking cheap liquor and chasing you, he will die.
Probably soon. In Arizona, he will be detoxed.
He will be fed. He will have therapy. He will make friends. He will be safe."
He squeezed my knees again. "But more importantly, you will be safe. You cannot heal if you are constantly looking over your shoulder, waiting for him to appear. I am building a wall, Florian. Not to punish him, but to let you breathe."
"It costs so much money," I whispered, the shame burning my cheeks. "Thousands of dollars. For him. He doesn't deserve your money."
"He doesn't," Knox agreed without hesitation. "But you deserve peace. And I am willing to pay any price for that."
He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against mine. "Let me do this. Let me take this weight. You've carried him long enough."
The knot in my chest, the one that had been pulled tight for twenty-one years, loosened just a fraction. I let out a shuddering breath, closing my eyes. "Okay," I whispered. "Okay, Daddy."
***
The night air was cool, but under the duvet, the world was warm and silent.
I lay with my head on Knox's chest, listening to the steady, powerful thud of his heart.
It was a slow rhythm, unhurried. I hadn't touched my phone all evening.
I didn't want to know if the plane had landed.
I didn't want to track the flight. I had given the burden to Knox, just as he asked, and he had swallowed it whole.
Knox’s hand moved lazily up and down my back, tracing the line of my spine under my sleep shirt.
"Are you awake?" he murmured.
"Yeah."
"Thinking?"
"Trying not to."
He shifted, turning on his side so he was looming over me, blocking out the moonlight, blocking out the room. He cupped my face, his fingers sliding into my hair, holding me still.
His eyes were serious. There was no lust in them tonight.
"I need you to hear this," he said, his voice low and gravelly. "As long as I am breathing, nothing touches you. Not him. Not the world. You are safe now."
He didn't say it like a hope. He said it like a law of physics. Like gravity.
"I know," I whispered, and I wasn't just saying it to please him.
I reached up, tracing the hard line of his jaw. He turned his head, kissing my palm.
"Sleep, my boy," he commanded softly. "I have the watch."
I curled into him, burying my face in his neck, breathing in the scent of pine. The terror of the afternoon felt like a distant memory, something that happened to a different version of me.
My father was gone. And I was here, held by the beast who would burn the world down to keep me warm.
My eyes grew heavy. I let go of the tension in my muscles, bit by bit, until I was just a weight in his arms.
"Goodnight, Daddy," I mumbled, already drifting.
"Goodnight, my boy."